Operational management of contractual and transactional interactions between buyers, sellers, financial institutions and others involved in the exchange of products for purposes of commerce have typically been labor and time intensive. Generally, the processes of managing transactions between transaction entities have been unduly burdensome and inefficient.
For many organizations, managing and tracking transaction functions can be particularly burdensome and costly. When a particular organization contracts and otherwise transacts with a large number of suppliers/sellers, the organization typically must interact with each supplier/seller on an individual basis. As the diversity of these interactions increases, the burden and cost associated with managing and tracking transaction functions is exacerbated.
Individual interactions between buyers and sellers are often characterized by specific contracts, payment rules and other financial processing characteristics. For example, certain sellers may require payment terms such as a net payment due within a particular time period, payment to a particular financial institution or payment in a particular currency. In addition, certain sellers may require different payment terms for different contracts. Entity-specific and transaction-specific variances in payment terms can be particularly difficult to manage and track.
In addition, when a transaction reaches the payment step, financial institutions for different parties to the transaction must interact with each other. This interaction typically involves complex agreements and associations that facilitate the transfer of funds. At times, there can be delays in payment or disputes regarding terms of payment. In addition, this process is highly susceptible to error. Interaction complexity, delay and error, as well as a multitude of other characteristics of transaction payment can cost one or more parties to a transaction (including financial institutions) a significant amount of funds.
Attempts have been made to automate certain transaction processes, but these attempts have generally been limited in application to party-specific applications, with processing implementations limited in controllability and accessibility. Where financial institutions are involved, the provision of credit and other finance-based transaction processing has generally required separate disintegrated processing systems. Generally, such approaches have been characterized by significant cost and complexity.
The above and other difficulties in the management and coordination of transactions have presented administrative and cost challenges to entities involved in various aspects of transactions, including processing and financing aspects of transactions.